Thursday, 25 November 2010

In the 22 November trial of Alfredo and Christos for bank robbery in Trikala, Alfredo M. Bonnano was sentenced to 4 years imprisonment (which practically means that with the time served so far and the fact that he is over 70 years old, he was released). Christos Stratigopoulos (who took responsibility for the action) was sentenced to 8 years and 9 months and with the Greek law will probably be released at the end 2011.

a statement by one of the comrades:

"From the first instance it became clear that the judge and attorney wanted a fast trial without any ideological characteristics and with the only guide being the criminal record of the accused. In short, they wanted to prove that Alfredo Bonanno was the leader, the moral perpetrator of the robbery and that Christos was the pupil, the one who executed the plan.Yet thanks to the solid evidence, the witnesses who testified in support of the two and the great contribution of the lawyers (Papadakis, Kourtovik, Sineli), these claims collapsed.It “hurt” them that Alfredo was free, that he has essentially served his sentence – and they looked for any legal or other trick in order to torture him further. And so, from the prison of Larisa he was transported to the city’s police headquarters under the pretext of the approval of his exit from the country by the headquarters in Athens. There they informed us that apart from the Interpol alert, they would also hold him until their political senior officers would “judge” whether he would be deported in accordance to article 106 of the presidential decree of 2007. Late in the night, after calling a Larisa-based lawyer, we were informed that Alfredo had been arrested anew in accordance to the above article, as he was considered a threat to public security and unwelcome in Greece!Once again he had to prove the obvious! A 74-year old man with very poor health was considered dangerous. The same went for us, who were waiting outside, the very few comrades sitting at a bench: they sent Riot Police, DIAS and Zita motorcycle cops, undercovers and the anti-terrorist unit to guard us, since we posed a threat to public security!Faced with this obvious political revanchist action, played within a strategically covered psychological warfare against Alfredo, we had to decide whether to appeal at the Larisa court, which would mean Alfredo would remain detained until the decision was made or until the Greek state would decide to officially deport him. The instant solution given by his lawyers was for him to be released on Tuesday afternoon and to leave on his own from Larisa to Italy through Athens in the coming days. After everything comrades lived through from the day of their arrest up until yesterday, as well as for the rest of Christos’ days in prison, they wish and we wish to extend a huge “thank you” to all friends and comrades from Konitsa who came to our support, the friends from Ioanina and across Greece as well as abroad who stood by our side, giving us courage and psychological, moral and financial support.To the comrades we extend our hand, we unite our camaraderie in a dynamic of anarchist solidarity…"

Friday, 22 October 2010

Thursday, 21 October 2010 - We thank all the comrades everywhere for the solidarity that they have shown us until now, but are asking them to please not participate in our trial that is due to take place in Larissa on November 22, 2010.Alfredo and Christos

Tuesday, 21 September 2010 - translated from informa-azioneThe date for the trial of Alfredo Bonanno and Christos Stratigopoulos, arrested on 1 October 2009 in Greece on charges of robbery, has been set for November 22, 2010.The current account remains valid for subscriptions to face the expenses linked to the comrades' detention. For any communication you can refer to the contact details of Edizioni Anarchismo (Mail: A. Medeot, CP 3431, 34128 Trieste - E.mail: edizionianarchismo@gmail.com).Postal account No. 23852353, payable to A. Medeot - c.p. 3431 - Trieste, stating "subscription for arrests in Greece".To write to the comrades:Alfredo Bonanno - Christos StratigopoulosFilakes Solomou 3-518110 - KorydallosAthens (Greece)

Thursday, 6 May 2010

from actforfreedomnow"If I turned to robbery, it wasnt for the profit. It was a matter of principal, a matter of justice. I preferred to maintain my freedom, my independence, my dignity as a human being, than to become a creator of wealth for my boss" Marius Jacob (French illegalist)There are people, that deny the capitalist ideology that has settled in most people's mind as a given characteristic of human nature, and look for ways to slip away from its everyday paranoia.The robbing of a bank is a practice that cancels in the most immediate way, the relationship between boss and "slave", abuser and abused. Since it allows the subject to control in its own its time and appetite for creation, without dying slowly in the workcamps increasing the profits of the bosses (big and small).It denys giving away this whole life to this unfair economic system, begging for crums in order to survive. It's a part of the generalized attack against the rotten world of submission and part of the plan for its destruction. Of course, the robbery of a bank just to acquire more consumer goods, is not an action against what exists but an action that conserves it. In the end it's the subject that defines the action.[.....]On april 28th, G.Dimitrakis, who is accused of expropriating the National Bank of Greece on Solwnos Street in Athens on January 16/2006, passed again through the court desks to appeal against the first sentence and was sent away one more time to face the justice system. In an act of solidarity, we let the fire and not the court "judge" his life's choices. So on the morning of April 27th, we put an explosive device in front of the door of the Emporiki Bank near the courts in Hania.P.S. 1 : Solidarity to the 3 comrades wanted for the same case and to A. Bonnano, CH. Stratigopoulos, G.Voutsis-Vogiatzis and to all those who chose to attack the temples of money.P.S. 2: We are waiting impatiently for the political tumble of the system and the radicalisation of society for a class, antistate war.Defusion of Guerilla thought

Tuesday, 27 April 2010

27/4

The Building of the Hellenic Centre in the heart of London was occupied earlier this afternoon. 2 banners were flying on the roof and the balcony of the building. The banners said: ‘Freedom to Dimitrakis and to all Anarchists’; the 2nd writes ‘Honour to Lambros Fountas’ ‘Freedom to the 6′, and the 3rd banner 'Fire to the prisons! Freedom to Alfredo Bonanno and Christos Stratigopoulos!'

The 6 refers to the 6 anarchists arrested a few days ago accused by the cops of participating in the ‘Revolutionary Stuggle’; Lambros Fountas is the anarchist who was killed by the police in March and Giannis Dimitrakis is the anarchist who is in jail doing 35 years for a bank robbery. Today there was a call for international solidarity to Dimitrakis as his appeal trial starts tomorrow.

Monday, 26 April 2010

A few days ago the application of A.Bonnano and Ch.Stratigopoulos for release on bail was denied and it was decided that they must stay in jail for a another 6 months.

Especially in A. Bonanno's case, the extension of his imprisonment was decided in spite of various doctors pointing out (the prison doctor as well as outside doctors that examined him) his very serious health situation.

Thursday, 8 April 2010

Last Tuesday, March 23rd, a few hundred fliers were handed out at the entrance, inside and around the Commercial and Economic Section of the Greek Embassy in Lisbon, in the area of Saldanha.The text of the flier:

« Freedom for all, in Greece and everywhere.

It’s true, the situation in Portugal is the same as in Greece. Populations living in poverty, on a daily misery in which we feel life turning into survival, at the same time that bosses and banks rob us of each moment and each place that used to be ours. Police, courts and prisons for those who dare to confront that misery and, increasingly, even for those who do not confront it at all. People that with a disgusting regularity are persecuted, beaten or murdered with shots by the police, because we all are a potential threat, no more no less, because the State has the authority and the weapons and the fear of revolt. Prisons that efficiently do their job: to eliminate dignity, to serve as a warehouse of undesirables, to give the example, to execute rebelliousness. To execute, plain and simply.

But in Portugal, as in Greece, as everywhere, there are those who do not stay still in the face of this system of exploitation, of oppression, of the elimination of everything that still breaths freely. There are those who put despair and resignation away, and grab life with nails and teeth, going for the attack.

Christos Stratigopoulos and Alfredo Maria Bonanno are only two of those individuals, arrested on October 2009, following a bank robbery in Trikala, Greece. Regardless of the crimes they are being charged with, the struggle for freedom is the crime they’ve always committed.

We want to denounce, in particular, the abusive detention of Alfredo M. Bonanno under unacceptable conditions in the prison of Koridallos (Athens), worsened even more with the attempt to frame him up with another bank robbery on July 2009. The politics of vengeance of the State has the aim of eliminating physically and psychologically this comrade of 73 years old who faces serious health problems. Alfredo Bonanno is an anarchist, involved in the movement since decades ago, active in the resistance against the dictatorship of the Greek colonels (1967-1974), and writer and editor of many anarchist texts. These are the true reasons for which they keep him in prison under conditions that endanger his life.

We demand the immediate release of Alfredo Maria Bonanno.For the destruction of all prisons.

Tuesday, 6 April 2010

Friday March 26, in the ambit of the international solidarity initiatives for Alfredo Bonanno, a presidium was held in Rome near the Greek embassy. This predium had the precise aim of demanding his immediate release.Alfredo, 73 year old anarchist comrade, finds himself kidnapped by the Greek state since last October, and is presently held in the prison of Koridallos in Athens. He is accused of concourse in bank robbery with another comrade, Christos Stratigopoulos, who immediately took full responsability concerning the robbery, attempted at a bank in the town of Trikala. In fact, Alfredo is being held now for reasons that are explicitly linked, even in the court papers in where they refused to release him some months ago, to his political identity as an anarchist. On this and the serious health conditions that he unfortunately finds himself in, is based the new request for his release, for which a hearing took place on Friday morning at the regional court of Larissa.For Christos the lawyers made no demands because he has nothing to ask of the judges.Because he is anarchist, Alfredo has our unconditional solidarity.Because he is unwell, we must obtain his liberation.Immediately.Around 9am a group of comrades had an appointment in the Parioli quarter, where there are many embassies. Awaiting them was (the demo had been called publicly) a considerable assortment of police: carabinieri and police in antiriot gear coordinated by about twenty plain clothes officers. You could say the ratio was about 5 to 1. And that the orders on how to direct the situation came from above. The presidium was blocked from any possibility of getting directly in front of the embassy, which is why we stayed at two roundabouts, with amplification and various interventions to block the traffic and hand out texts that we include below. On the other hand, the fact that the area had been militarized had in itself created attention and alarm in all those who were passing by, to the point of even making some representatives of the Greek embassy come out into the street, rigorously behind the line of cops.When the presidium disbanded slogans and posters appeared on the walls in solidariety to the comrades and in memory of Lambros Foundas, the comrade murdered by the police in Athens on March 10, following a shootout.To conclude, considering it necessary however to say something about initiatives of this kind, we repeat the words of the comrades who in London last February, paid a visit to the Greek embassy for the same reasons, saying that "this small demonstration of solidarity had the aim of showing the Greek State that our imprisoned comrades are not alone. We know perfectly well that, in the struggle against repression and in support of our imprisoned comrades, these kind of actions are futile in themselves, and should therefore be placed in the context of a wider and extended projectuality of international solidarity aimed at the generalisation of the attack on the existent". We point out that the judges, in Greece, from Friday 26 are in procinto of sentencing on the fate of Alfredo.....Comrades of the AntiAuthoritarian Assembly of Rome.

One of the leaflets handed out...

We are adverse to human relationships that are flat, functional, useful. Those for whom trust is turned into faith, generosity into exchange of favours, solidarity into interest, respect into submission. But we don’t have time, or interest, to wait for a different cultural system, a new leader or some modern messiah to change the situation.We don’t believe in other lives, therefore what we want, we want it now. Human relations that are mediated by the institutions or by imposed moral behaviour is not for us. The squalid practice of looking first at a person’s wallet and then their eyes, is the habit of a society where everything is reduced to numbers, quantity, profit. In this bloodcurdling human scenario we well know on whose side we are on, and it is certainly not a bank account to suggest it to us. And it is among those who do not resign themselves to a life of obedience and resignation, their own and that of others, that we find fraternal glances and complicity, comrades, male and female. We should be interested to learn that the persons whose liberation we are demanding are guilty of an attempted bank robbery? Well, that’s not so. We are not interested. At least not in the measure in which this should lead us to see tham as miserable abjects. But if precisely we were to express ourselves on the subject, having always supported the pirates since we were tiny, think what words of disdain we would be able to pronounce!!?? Not one. At best we would be rammaricati by the fact that they didn’t succeed in cleaning out that bank. But that’s not the point.Christos and Alfredo are our comrades, and as such we think that they deserve our support, our solidarity. They often try to pass of the latter for inclinations which those that are labelled degenerate terrorists dedicate themselves to. On the other hand, the misery of this order prefers little men and little women, egoist, closed up in their little world of objects. That is also why we want to do away with this authoritarian order.That is why we are deaf to the sentences expressed by its institutions, that wants to teach us who are the good and who the bad.We hear instead loud and clear the cry of freedom and the frastuono of their passions as they lead those who have not resigned themselves.FREEDOM FOR ALFREDO M. BONANNO AND XRISTOS STRATIGOPOULOS HELD IN CUSTODY IN THE ATHENS PRISON OF KORIDALLOS SINCE 1°OCTOBER 2009 ACCUSED OF HAVING ROBBED A BANKRome, March 2010 AntiAuthoritarianAssembly

Friday, 2 April 2010

31/3/10 Wednesday An unknown person claimed resposibility for the arson attack on Emporiki bank in Greece with a phone call to "eleftherotipia" newspaper saying:"Terrorists are the banks and capitalists. Immediate release of Alfredo Bonnano,whose ongoing imprisonment equals his physical extermination considering his age (73 now) and his health situation.Freedom to C.Stratigopoulos,to Dimitrakis and to Voutsis-Vogiatzis.May the fires we light dry our tears for the murder of comrade Lambros Foundas".

Friday, 26 March 2010

Saturday13 March13.00 "Blitz" of a group of comrades in solidarity at the Greek consulate in via Indipendenza with banners ("your cops for killing/your banks for stealing/freedom to Alfredo and Christos") megaphone, leaflets thrown and smoke bombs. When the first cops started to arrive, the comrades move to the crossroads between via Indipendenza and via Irnerio still megaphoning and handing out leaflets. Meanwhile from a balcony in the park on the hill montagnola fireworks were set off and a banner was unfurled ("10-03-2010 Atene Assassini") in memory of the recent assassination of the comrade Lambros.14.00 Presidium in solidariety with Alfredo and Christos in Piazza 8 Agosto: a good response from the people browsing in the market.16.30 A few Anarchists materialise in front of a stall of the northern league disturbing their racist propaganda with leaflets and interventions with the megaphone appreciated by passersby.Anarchici bolognesifrom informa-azione 21/03/10

20/03/2010Ioannina, Greece.Two incendiary devices composed of gas canisters and petrol explode in Ioannina. One at the Techology Park building of Ioannina university, and at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Ioannina.

claimed in Athens indymedia:

For Lambro - we want to continue what he started.Freedom to all the comrades in prison: Giannis Dimitrakis, G. Boutzis, H. Nikolau, P. Georgiadis, B. Chrisohoidis, C. Stratigopolous and Alfredo Bonanno.Immediate freedom to Massura Hadimikelaki Yiospa.Solidarity to all those under arrest accused for the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire.Alchemists for chaos

Let's say things as they are... CRIMINALS AND ROBBERS ARE THE STATES AND THE CAPITALISTS

1/10/2009 Expropriation of a bank in Trikala.The same day anarchists Christos Stratigopoulos and Alfredo Bonanno are arrested. Still today they are imprisoned in one of democracy's hellholes.A democracy that knows how to punish its sworn enemys.

Especially for A.Bonanno, - the 73 year old comrade with a long and multiform contibution to the international subversive anarchist movement-Who has serious health problems,the revengeful imprisonement puts his life in immediate danger.JUST LIKE EVERY HOSTAGE OF THE STATE, CHRISTOS AND ALFREDO ARE NOT ALONE.

Wednesday, March 17th, 19.00pm, Politechnic, Gini building.Discussion-Video Projection about the prosecution of anarchists in italy.-Intervention from a comrade former co-accused of C. Stratigopoulos and A. Bonanno-Information from the defence lawyers.

FREEDOM TO ALFREDO BONANNO AND CHRISTOS STRATIGOPOULOS AND ALL THE FIGHTING PRISONERS

Friday, 26 February 2010

We attacked Marathon bank, a subsidiary of the same Piraeus bank that Alfredo Bonanno and Christos Stratigopoulos are accused of expropriating.

Capitalism is a system of relationships, which goes from inside to out, from outside to in, from above to below, and from below to above. Everything is relative, everything is in chains. Capitalism is a condition both of the world and of the soul.-Franz Kafka

There is nothing left; nothing that hasn’t been molded, molested, or completely crushed; nothing that has managed to escape the network of power as it scours every inch of the earth, lodging itself into every crevice. Crowding each moment, the omnipresent asphyxiation provides ample evidence to this all-encompassing totalization. Heads bowed, backs bent, we bear the weight of the day in our beleaguered entrails.Now taking on increasingly monstrous qualities, a vampire-likeness of achieved full nocturnality, even the sleeper finds his dreams inhabited. Robbing us of expectations, snatching away our latent potential, Capital has acquired the speculative capability to recuperate futures and integrate things before their invention. After colonizing the entire world, the enemy now works to conquer the collective realm of our imaginations where we once plotted and, consequently, envisioned its very demise.The cooption of creativity signaled the predetermined defeat, which led the Marxists to surrender to the British Museum before they realized an 1848. The only pseudo-victory to their credit consists in pushing Negri out of the spotlight by ushering “communization” and “insurrection” into the academy’s discursive field. Both trends can be written off as failed experiments because each has neglected to activate the only concept capable of giving jargon any significance. The Struggle.“To fight, to be defeated, to fight again, to be defeated again, to fight anew until the final victory.”- An old Italian adageIn practice, the clashes and occupations have divorced the leftist baggage and chosen everyday life as the terrain for conflict, yet unfortunately expression still continues to abide by the activist calendar. A day of action is paled by a year of misery. Like long fits of depression, extended bouts of downtime undermine each subversive act, resulting in the production of militant event planners: blinded to the past and merely anticipating the next unsuccessful Bastille storming. They strike at the same tempo ordinary citizens attend birthday parties, riot at the same rate of wedding crashers and surely, at this pace, they will never RSVP the bourgeoisie funeral.Detached theory and relegated practice present themselves as nothing other than the comorbid symptoms of statified ideology. Now we can confidently diagnose that the much prophesized “coming” can only amount to a passing fad.We notice the relentless internalized repression masquerading as patience and so we refuse to wait for March 4th, the ides of March or, for that matter, any date to come. We expressed our distaste for the veiled technological prison of surveillance and electronic monitoring by sabotaging several of the soon to be installed ID-card scanners at the Hunter College campus. Against education as such, we then struck Brooklyn College’s administrative building. Lastly, we attacked Marathon bank, a subsidiary of the same Piraeus bank that Alfredo Bonanno and Christos Stratigopoulos are accused of expropriating. We extend our solidarity to the two imprisoned comrades and, as Bonanno’s health deteriorates in a prison cell, we adhere to the following principle.“For an eye, two eyes. For a tooth, the whole face.”

Athens, 25 feb. - Alfredo Bonanno, the Italian anarchist over 70 years old imprisoned last October following an accusation of concourse in robbery of a bank in Trikala, is suspected of being the author of another robbery carried out last July at Argostoli, on the island of Cefalonia. Bonanno's lawyers contest this accusation.

According to police sources cited by the media, Bonanno, with a false beard and wig, would have been recognised by one of the witnesses on the basis of a cctv video, while he robbed the Bank of Cyprus, pistol in hand, 6 July in Argostoli. The information has been partially confirmed to Ansa by a spokesman of the central police station, according to which "an old Italian is considered author of the robbery at Argostoli, which rendered 26 000 euros". The spokesman did not give Bonanno's name directly but implied that it was him.

Joanna Kurtovic, the Greek lawyer of the old Italian imprisoned in Korydallos (Athens), has expressed her doubts concerning the identification on the basis of a video and a critique of the way this accusation was made public. Bonanno, who suffers from diabetes and has cardio-respiratory problems, is one of the main theoreticians of anarcho-insurrectionnalism (sic). He was arrested at the beginning of October with the Greek anarchist Christos Stratigopoulos following the robbery of a bank in Trikala, for 47 000 euros. The Italian was later arrested in an hotel where the police found the proceeds of the robbery. Bonanno's defence is that he received the bag from Stratigopoulos, without knowing what it contained. His version, the lawyer points out, has been confirmed by Stratigopoulos, who has taken full responsibility for the robbery. The judge, apparently due to Bonanno's previous record, already having been sentenced in Italy, did not believe him and sent him to prison awaiting trial.

In the early hours of Tuesday 23rd February 2010, anarchists attacked the Royal Bank of Scotland HQ in the heart of developing Bristol, UK.Despite road traffic and proximity of security, the mob succeeded in breaking windows, smashing paint-bombs against upper floors and setting fire to tyres in the middle of the road.A litany of abuses by RBS or any other bank could continue for pages, but it is enough to state that every bank is part of the financial prison which incarcerates and impoverishes all of us.These actions will escalate and multiply.We dedicate this action to all indigenous fighters and their allies struggling against the Tar Sands project in Kanada which RBS is an investor in, and also all those who fight against the 2010 Winter-Olympics.This action is also in solidarity with Alfredo M. Bonanno, Christos Stratigopoulos, Polykarpos Georgiades, Vaggelis Chrisohoides, Giannis Dimitrakis, Gabriel Pombo da Silva, the entire London G20 defendants/prisoners and all other prisoners in struggle.

Alfredo Maria Bonanno remains inside the prison based on his ideas and long reputation as a writer and theorist of anarchism. An anarchism which is not yet dead, which is not yet decaying in the pages of history but is very much alive and growing in ferocity. An anarchism which will tear a hole in the guts of the European Union.

An anarchism long based in the South European ‘Mediterranean Triangle’, of Greece, Italy, and Spain, however finding fertile, rich ground to spread within many more minds not held by any borders, who are receptive to the anarchist vision of a future world without Church, State and Capital. Neither subjugation nor poverty.

This is an anarchism of freedom, joy and solidarity. An anarchism of stones and fire, of subversion and attack. This is the dynamite that explodes against the class enemy in Santaigo, Chile; the broken and smashed banks of countless dead cities of the USA & UK; the burnt BMW and Porsche of Berlin and Hamburg, Germany, which light up the night-sky for a precious passer-by; the gas-canister defence of Thessaloniki and Athens now turned quite deadly.

This is the anarchism of a complicit glance exchanged in a hostile crowd, or in a queue, or at work; sometimes like a smile, a warm expression of joy, sometimes like a friend who picks you up from the dirty punch you took all your life, or sometimes like the bullets which will find themselves periodically in the heads of powerful individuals and their pawns.

Alfredo; a writer who never betrayed his ideas in the pen and ink of conjecture, but wrote his words to express the realities around him, insights which came from the living social struggle that still remains in the hearts of many people, who will never stop dreaming about a beautiful life that has been denied to them by the prison society of capitalism and power.

This is an anarchism which cannot be jailed, cannot be repressed, cannot be put out, because it does not belong to anyone. This is an anarchism, which through the simple methods which people use to defend themselves from oppression, communicates itself through resistance and so finds friends everywhere that people have not given up hope that they can change the conditions that make their life miserable.

On Wednesday, 10 February at around eleven am. a group of comrades and friends went to the Greek embassy in Holland Park, London, in protest against prison conditions in Greece, and to hand in a fax to the Greek Ministry of Justice (see below) demanding the immediate release of anarchist Alfredo Maria Bonanno who has now been held for six months on charges of concourse in robbery despite his increasingly precarious state of health. The group went to the main entrance with a letter and tried to enter, after attaching a banner to the railings of the balcony saying ‘Fire to the prisons (in Greek and English). Freedom to Alfredo Bonanno and Christos Stratigopolous’. Embassy officials refused to open the door and could be seen cowering in the background as, seconds later, five police cars arrived on the scene and a consistent number of police ran up the steps and into the Embassy, the symbolic State boundaries that existed in 2009 having been broken. With the normal contempt of governments towards the people they claim to represent, the embassy refused to accept the letter. Despite attempts by the police to get the comrades to leave, they stood their ground and continued to occupy the balcony while others gave out leaflets and copies of the fax to passersby. Meanwhile more police arrived, some visibly carrying guns. The group only left after the letter was seen to be in the hands of the embassy boss.This small demonstration of solidarity was aimed at showing the Greek State that our comrades are not alone. We know perfectly well that such acts are in themselves futile concerning the struggle against repression and the fate of our comrades, and should be seen in the context of a wider and deeper projectuality of international solidarity aimed at a generalisation of the attack on the existent.In fact, the same evening we got news that, once again, the application for bail for Alfredo on medical grounds has been refused, confirming what is now clear to all, that the continued incarceration of this comrade has little to do with judicial procedure, but is a question of political revenge aimed at his physical and psychological destruction. Whether they will succeed or not is a question that concerns the whole movement, it is up to individual comrades to decide where they stand. Already diverse manifestations of solidarity have taken place in various parts of Europe and beyond, as part of the struggle in course. May this continue to spread, each according to their own creativity and choice of methods.Any act of solidarity for a comrade turns out to be an act for all. It affects all the exploited, inside and outside the prisons of capital in our common need to throw down the walls of oppression and misery everywhere, tear every prison to the ground right to the last stone, and break out into the infinite challenge of freedom.

letter to the Minister of Justice

London10 February 2010To the Minister of Justice, Trasparency and Human Rights,Athens.

We are here today to denounce the ongoing imprisonment of Alfredo Maria Bonanno in the prison of Koridallos, Athens, in spite of the announcement of new detention measures by the Ministry of Justice whereby thousands of prisoners presently being held in conditions that amount to torture in Greece’s overcrowded prisons and concentration camps would be released while awaiting trial.Given his advanced age, his seriously compromised health and the fact that the charges against him fall into the category of a misdemeanor, it is patently clear that the protracted detention of this 73-year old anarchist comrade is not based on the official judicial accusation of concourse in a robbery in the small town of Trikala six months ago, but is an exemplary case of political revenge against his ideas, aimed at his physical and psychological annihilation.Active in the anarchist movement for decades, one-time militant in the resistance against the dictatorship of the Greek colonels (1967-1974), writer and editor of many anarchist theoretical works: these are the political reasons why Alfredo Bonanno continues to be held under life-threatening conditions.

With the present, we, a few anarchists and lovers of freedom in London, demand the immediate liberation of Alfredo Maria Bonanno.

International solidarity initiativeto Alfredo M. Bonanno

For the destruction of all prisons

leaflet handed out outside the embassy

Like every other population on the planet, the Greek people are facing a situation of grave economic hardship due to the greed and avarice of bankers, politicians, church leaders, within the context of a global economic system based on the plundering and abuse of natural resources and the exploitation of millions of people.In that beautiful country, considered by many here as no more than a pleasant holiday resort, it is, as always, the young people, immigrants, over-exploited workers and unemployed to bear the brunt of the crisis. Brutal policing and judicial repressive measures are being employed, and these are sure to get worse over the coming months as more and more people are pushed beyond the limits of stoic endurance. During the weeks following December 6 2009, the whole country was shaking at the wrath of school pupils rebelling following the murder in cold blood, by a policeman, of a fellow pupil, Alexandros Grigoropoulos. They were joined by thousands and thousands of anarchists, immigrants, students and young unemployed, in a widespread social rebellion. Representatives of the repressive forces of this country are now present in Greece to help their Greek counterparts in the repression of all forms of protests while the Greek people continue to suffer the consequences of the economic choices made by the above.In spite of a protracted hungerstrike in November 2008 involving 7-8,000 prisoners, Greek prisons are full to overflowing and some are such that even the guards refer to them as extermination camps. Promises by the politicians of the recently elected Pasok (socialist party) in government have been mainly ignored and thousands of prisoners continue to suffer in appalling inhuman conditions.At the present time all expressions of anger and rebellion in Greece are being brutally repressed, inside and outside the prison walls, but the struggle for freedom is vibrant and alive, and is an inspiration everywhere.The spirit of rebellion will never be suppressed.Active solidarity in the struggle.Destroy all prisons

Sunday, 7 February 2010

They will never convince us, those fanatics of democracy, that life equals survival, that work liberates, that we have to be submissive slaves in the cogwheels of a global machine based on exploitation and oppression.We will never become “good citizens” submerged in the depressing loneliness of our couch, audacious cowards at the commands of the security doctrine, satisfied with the mediocrity of our existence.They will never correct our desires with laws, regulations and dungeons.There will always be those who dare and will continue to attack against the logic and morality of dominion, which will burn in the same fire we have lit the ashes of knowledge and the flame of action.We are not interested in creating myths of actions- tools in the hands of every oppressed with a conscience, as we are not interested in the construction of “innocent” and “guilty” by civic legality and all its lackeys.We salute and respect the personal choices and the polymorphous action of comrades – anarchists, revolutionaries and rebels- who look the enemy in the eye and charge holding a dream in their heart.Against the existent and its defenders we oppose our solidarity in practice and our raging desire for freedom, until the destruction of prisons and the society that creates them.FREEDOM FOR THE ANARCHISTS ALFREDO BONANNO AND CHRISTOS STRATIGOPOULOS IMPRISONED AWAITING TRIAL FROM 1/10/2009ACCUSED OF BANK ROBBERY.

“Freedom, therefore Anarchy is perceivable but cannot be possessed. It is the qualitative whole which I lose at that exact moment that I wonder if I can maintain it and guarantee it against the demands of someone else. To give controls without a price in return the quality, to give yourself means to open yourself up without asking for something in exchange. Without this we will never reach quality but we will always remain in the impenetrable of the deed. The action that doesn’t involve me, that doesn’t change my life by placing me in danger, is just a deed, a routine that tends to pollute even my everyday existence.”A. Bonanno

1st of October 2009, an expropriation of a bank in Trikala takes place. Later that same day, anarchists Christos Stratigopoulos and Alfredo Bonanno are arrested and imprisoned awaiting trial. Christos assumes responsibility for the action while Alfredo refuses the charges laid upon him.Up to this day the two comrades remain imprisoned having to face the appalling conditions that prevail in the prison cells of Greek democracy. As always also now, in times of crisis on all levels, the state- the unified party of the bosses, those legal robbers who amass social wealth in their safes and label, through the mass media, as a robber whoever fights against this condition of oppression and exploitation- knows how to punish in an exemplary way its stated enemies.Particularly in the case of A. Bonanno, the 73 year-old comrade with a long and polymorphous presence in the lines of the international anarchist- subversive current who faces serious- diagnosed even by the state- health problems (heart condition, diabetes, serious myosceletical problems), his continued detention takes on the characteristics of vengefulness and of his physical destruction and places his life in imminent danger.Like every captive of the statealso Christos and Alfredo are not alone

Wednesday, 3 February 2010

On the 3.2.2010 some anarchists payed a short visit at the greek consulate in Berlin, located at the Wittenberg square. With a banner reading in both greek and german „the passion for freedom ist stronger than any prison – freedom to Alfredo Bonanno and Christos Stratigopoulis“ we raised attention on the situation of the two comrades imprisoned in Greece.Some flyers have been given out to the passer-byers. A fax has been given to the consul and sent over to the „minister for justice and human rights of Greece“. The fax sent was the same one greek comrades already sent over during the last days in a similar action.

Alfredo and Christos, both active since long time in the anarchist movement, have been arrested on the 1.10.09 in Trikala, Greece, accused of committing a bank robbery.Alfredo, 73 years old anarchist comrade from Italy has serious health problems and suffers under the heavy conditions in prison. Despite the fact that the greek law prescribes an earlier release upon serious health problems, the authorities refused until now to set him free.

This small action has been a piece of solidarity along the struggle for the release of both comrades. Different expressiona of solidarity took place in different countries within the last months.

You can check further infos about the two comrades and the solidarity actions under:

We wish to denounce the abusive and illegal detention of Alfredo Maria Bonanno in unacceptable conditions in the prison of Koridallos (Athens). The vindictive politic of the State is aimed at the physical and psychological annihilation of the 73-year old comrade who is facing serious health problems. Alfredo Bonanno is an anarchist, who has been involved in the movement for decades, militant in the resistance against the dictatorship of the Greek colonels (1967-1974), and writer and editor of many works.

Tuesday, 26 January 2010

Compañeras and comrades,From within a climate of daily anarchist action and the brutal repression of every aspect of our lives I am taking the liberty of informing you of two important developments concerning the detention of Alfredo Bonanno.As you already know Alfredo Bonanno and Christos Stratigopoulos were transferred to Korydallos prison one day before the transfer of the murderer Korkonea to the prison of Amfissa.There, the pharmacy refused to grant him his medication for diabetes and severe pain in the shoulder caused by a tumour diagnosed by doctors at the health centre of Amfissa.Following pressure from their comrades a doctor sent by the Italian Embassy visited him in prison where his serious state of health was confirmed.I would like to inform you that at this time the investigator in Trikala is deliberating the application for Alfredo's release on bail.Following the new detention measures of the Ministry of Justice, Bonanno's advanced age (73 years), his compromised health and his detention for a misdemeanor (given that Stratigopoulos has assumed responsibility for the armed robbery), it is patently clear that his continued detention is an exemplary one of political revenge.Alfredo Bonanno is a revolutionary anarchist comrade and a writer of many works. That why he is being held, if it wasn't him, he would already be free until the trial.But for us, for whom solidarity is our weapon and who know that in any uprising we will be dynamite, we will not abandon our comrade. We demand the immediate release of Alfredo Bonanno.Freedom now for Alfredo Bonanno.Eva Tziutzia

Ps. The following fax has been sent to the Minister of Justice Trasparency and Human Rights, Athens, the Italian Embassy in Athens and the press.

We wish to denounce the abusive and illegal detention of Alfredo Maria Bonanno in unacceptable conditions in the prison of Koridallos (Athens). The vindictive politic of the State is aimed at the physical and psychological annihilation of the 73-year old comrade who is facing serious health problems. Alfredo Bonanno is an anarchist who has been involved in the movement for decades, militant in the resistance against the dictatorship of the Greek colonels (1967-1974), and writer and editor of many works.

Tuesday, 19 January 2010

Alfredo Maria Bonanno and Christos Stratigopoulos, anarchists imprisoned in Greece accused of carrying out a bank robbery, have been moved from Amfissa prison to the Korydallos prison of Athens. Alfredo was throughout the move in handcuffs, and Christos without, also the bag of Alfredo was ‘lost’ in transit by the screws.

More updates to come- from the 20th Jan 2010 there will be a legal decision over the question of them coming out of the prison on bail before the upcoming trial.

Alfredo and Christos have been transferred from the Amfissa 'concentration camp' to Korydallos prison in Athens. It is not known whether this is a 'permanent' move by the Greek state, or whether it is merely a tactic to remove them from the town of Amfissa where the trial of the cop murderer, killer of 15 year old Alexis Grigoropolous, is due to start on the 20th of this month in spite of an appeal to the Greek prime minister by Alexi's mother for the trial to take place in Athens, which was Alexi's home town, and where the crime was committed.

Sunday, 3 January 2010

Yet one more episode in the chronicles of repression is now well-known to all: on October 1 Alfredo Bonanno (from Italy) and Christos Stratigopoulos (from Greece), two anarchists who have already been hit by repression on a number of occasions, were arrested in Greece following a robbery, and imprisoned in the small town of Amfissa. It is not our intention to comment on their action, which nevertheless has our full appreciation, nor will we indulge in other details concerning the comrades’ arrest, which have been abundantly exposed in previous leaflets and communiques.On the contrary, what we feel the urge to do here is to remind all the comrades reading these lines that Christos and Alfredo are still being detained in the concentration camp of Amfissa and that it is the case to reflect upon this with greater determination.Everybody now knows something of the conditions of detention in Amfissa. No living being should be placed in such a hellish place. Hence we wish it to be destroyed once and for all along with all the prisons and detention centres of this world, a desire we and many other comrades have been stressing over and over through written words and sometimes (far too few, we are afraid) through deeds. We all agree on much-debated points such as the attack on this system of exploitation that builds jails and represses every form of rebellion, and are for the total destruction of all prisons. We also agree that support and solidarity be given to imprisoned comrades everywhere. We want all our comrades free, along with each and every rebel currently detained in the dungeons of whatever State and, having our own concept of social retribution, are against prison even for our enemies.It is within this context that we want to emphasize the specific case of Alfredo, whose age and state of health - alas - have also become part of the chronicle. It is quite obvious that his continued detention under the present conditions is a precise political choice, backed up by law—where power is taking to the ultimate degree its revenge on an anarchist revolutionary who has always been a sworn enemy of authority in all its forms.It is time to act regarding Alfredo’s situation, which is becoming extremely serious, as well as to denounce the widespread barbaric conditions that continue to exist in the Greek jails in spite of a protracted hungerstrike undertaken by thousands of prisoners last year.Benefit gigs and counterinformation can be important initiatives. Sporadic actions against the symbols of power are beautiful acts of solidarity. But all of these remain isolated in the absence of a constant attack on the State and capital as a whole, which includes working to extend the struggle to involve the exploited inside and outside the walls of infamy. This is a necessary road within which to elaborate specific actions, including those aimed at not abandoning individual comrades who find themselves in particular conditions in the hands of the enemy.Let’s act now to keep the struggle against every kind of prison alive and effective until all prisoners are free and all prisons are destroyed, first and foremost the invisible walls that enclose mind and body in daily habit and unquestioning rituals of dissent.Let’s show our comrades hostages of the State that we are with them in the ardent struggle for life and dignity, that the passion for freedom is not just a slogan, but a fearsome torrent of love and destruction.

Dear ...Greetings from me and Alfredo who got your letter yesterday. Here things haven’t changed at all from the moment we arrived.The main problem is still Alfredo’s very precarious health situation. Apart from all his health problems, which as you know he had before entering prison here in Greece, now the pain in his shoulder is coming back because of the tumour which, according to the diagnosis that they made in Italy, needed to be operated on. There can be no doubt that his general health situation has got worse from from the moment he went back to prison. This fact is also due to the extremely bad conditions of detention that we are both coping with, particularly Alfredo because of his age.Moreover, things here are very slow at the administrative level.For example, they took him to the local hospital twenty days ago to do Xrays of his shoulder and still they haven’t given him the necessary documentation from the hospital, which the lawyers need in order to present a new urgent request for his release.Today, they told us that at the most by the end of next week they would give us the medical certificates that the lawyers need.For the time being all we can do is to patiently put up with this unpleasant situation.I know that many comrades in Greece are aware of this situation and are interested to see what happens with Alfredo’ second application to the judges for release on medical grounds.I don’t think that there is anything better to do, because the need for his release is becoming essential.Nearly every day we get letters and postcards from many comrades in Greece but also from nearly all the rest of Europe. This fact comforts us a lot knowing that we are not alone to face this difficult situation, particularly Alfredo for the reasons explained above. We also got a postcard from England, from some comrades in Bristol.The new application for release for Alfredo, with the new medical documentation that we are waiting for, should be made some time around Christmas. We are waiting to see.I hope you are well, etc.............Alfredo sends his greetings, perhaps he will write to you but, among other things, he hasn’t been seeing well recently. But don’t worry, because I am looking after him.A strong hugChristos

Christos dared, but didn’t get away. Alfredo was in the wrong place at the wrong time and also lost his freedom. Fair play, some have exclaimed. And who more than an anarchist accepts individual responsibility for his or her actions. Who more than an anarchist can look the enemy and above all his comrades in the eyes and claim the ethical premise of his choices. If something goes wrong and he finds himself in the hands of the enemy, he doesn’t cry scandal, he knows that capital’s acolytes and guard dogs are always ready to denounce, arrest and imprison anyone caught transgressing the code of submission and obedience. However, the moral and physical strength that comrades muster when they find themselves suffering at the hands of the hangmen of repression does not come from an old-boys’ concept of ‘fair play’, which implies a logical basis of equality and impartiality such as the playing fields of Eton or a friendly match between Oxford and Cambridge. Old Christian teachings such as ‘an eye for an eye...’ are hard to die, but they don’t fit into the context of freedom and revolution anywhere at all. The seeming objectivity of the law: a (the crime) = b (the punishment) only exists in the daydreams of the bourgeois. Accountancy is comforting, it induces sleep.For the professional bank robber some level of calculation might exist: yes, robbing banks can also be a job, one where the risk factor can be more easily calculated than days on end enduring boring slave-labour, being slowly poisoned by toxic substances, risking falling from a building under construction or having one's hand cut off by a circular saw. He can use the law (nothing to do with ‘justice’ in the real sense of the word) to estimate his potential losses and gains in terms of dignity, free time and quality of life. So long as he is discreet, doesn’t start wanting too much, become extrovert and disdainful of capital and the State, or shoot a cop. Then the balance swings and he must defend his freedom at all costs. In the case of the contrary the best he can hope for is a volley of bullets, the worst, decades behind bars in segregation units. Power must defend itself against folk heroes too, and once the media have done their dirty work, the rest is easy.

For the anarchist the discourse is different. He or she who refuses to exploit others or to be exploited in exchange for a wage has put themselves in another logic to that of capital in order to be better equipped - in terms of time and and a mind free from the burden of compromise and self-loathing - to enter the qualitative versant of reality. Money loses its godlike omnipresence to become a mere expedient, which is often reduced to a minimum. The comrade doesn’t save money, nor does he save himself. Liberated from the logic of exchange work, study, play and attack intertwine as components of a revolutionary projectuality that overflows without measure. In that dimension, in a consciously chosen life without guarantees, the need for money is not eliminated but it is removed from the pivotal position that it holds under capital. Not that one can live outside capital. But one can have a different, unsuccumbing relation to it, the better to fight it. Freed from the brutalisation of work, one’s thinking and powers of observation become more acute. For the revolutionary, lack of money is never an excuse for not facing up to one’s responsibilities in life and in the struggle. When it becomes a necessity in order to move forward, one can also decide to look around, take stock, observe the workings of the enemy and also, why not, to find the means necessary to confront some concrete necessity. This is not so difficult once the ‘moral split’ imposed upon us since birth has been healed and we are at one with our conscience.A comrade becomes a real danger to capital and a target for its guard dogs and good citizens from the moment in which he stops selling his strength, ingenuity and intellect to a boss in exchange for a wage and turns them against the whole system of exploitation and plunder, aka capitalism and the State. It’s not a failed robbery to give him the status of public enemy - so much flaunted by the Greek media in the case of Alfredo following his arrest, - but the fact that he has had the affront to turn his knowledge and ideas against the State and capital and, even more perverse, to share them with others in a dimension of complicity.

Because the anarchist does not conceal his knowledge in secrecy in order to raise its quota on the shelves of the grocer’s shop of Academia but spends hours, days, nights over books, malfunctioning printers, improvised collating tables, interminable post office queues, to disseminate versions that any comrade can have access to. That’s the last straw. Confirmation of a diabolical mind that must be destroyed at any cost. And this destruction mustn’t come about in a open dazzling manner. ... Please. We are civilised! We are against the death penalty. The Junta were overthrown on November 17 1973 by our brave students and worthy citizens, a fact that we celebrate every year on that day, peacefully of course... don’t believe what you read in the press about police beating up hundreds of young people mercilessly. We are a democracy... No, we are the home of democracy, the foundation of civilisation..So, what was that story about the giant and the fly? How many fleas and lice does it take to drive a man insane? How many men can you lock up in a cell before they all go crazy? How low do sanitary conditions have to go before all succumb to sickness and disease? What did you say? Concentration camp? Crematorium? Who do you think I am, Hitler? We are socialists and we have a social war on our hands...

No, here we are not facing objectivity, equality, impartiality. We are facing the enemy, the servants and structures of a murderous system based on the submission and exploitation of millions of people all over the planet.All of our imprisoned comrades, no matter where they are and under what circumstances they were arrested, are being held hostage not for the ‘crime’ on the arrest warrant, but for their real crime, the crime of freedom, the crime of being anarchists, rebels and revolutionaries. And that is why we must not abandon them.

I am an anarchist recently imprisoned in Amfissa prison. Obviously, you can understand that I have the same relation to socialism as you have to antiauthoritarianism. I say this because I heard yesterday on the television news that Mr Giorgos Papandreou* urged his new ministers ‘act as antiauthoritarians towards authority’.Personally, I have always been a supporter of specific actions and not on the contrary of vague talk and that is the reason why I presently find myself in prison and not, of course, for ideological reasons.I do not wish to tire you with my words, honourable Minister of Justice. But I say to you directly that if I were in a position to decide on the matter of the penitentiary system, I would destroy prisons or at least I would close them down. I personally dream of different ways of rendering so-called justice, which I cannot imagine you would ever be in a position to support.However, I have to inform you, if you are unaware of it, that Greek prisons, and especially the Amfissa prison where I am presently being held, are only one step away from the Nazi concentration camps or the respective camps of the eastern bloc. I am sure that, as new Minister of Justice, you will be available to come to confirm the truth of my words.Finally I would like to ask one final question: What do you intend to do about the present conditions in Greek prisons Mr Minister? Will you continue to coop men up like mice inside them, or are you capable of forming, I don’t say human, but more acceptable conditions for all prisoners?You know perhaps that the very minions of your law call the prison of Amfissa a crematorium.

It's an old story, stuff of the last century. Two anarchists are arrested following a bank strike. The first robbed it, arm in hand. They say the second helped him by looking after the money. It happened in a small town in Greece on October 1. So? Such things happen.And then that country is far away, with an incomprehensible untranslatable language. Who do you think will be interested? The robber is Christos Stratigopulos, already arrested and sentenced in Italy about fifteen years ago on a similar charge.After doing his time he went back to Greece. Remembered by few, unknown to most..The other arrested, on the other hand, is Alfredo Bonanno. Yes, him; who hasn't heard his name?In its small way the news soon went round the world, thrown out by many press agencies: 'one of the major theoreticians of insurrectionalist anarchism', 'one of the major ideologues of anarchism', 'anarchist writer and activist', 'the fugitive international anarchist robber', 'theoretician of revolutionary violence'has once again ended up in prison. The men of both Greek and Italian anti-terrorism rushed to the scene, ready to exploit the appetizing occasion.All the elements for building a fine theorem are there: a country where there are still blazing hotbeds following the great insurrectional blaze that spread like wildfire last December, a Greek anarchist active in the movement, a foreign anarchist known for his anarchist theories who went around the country doing talks, a robbed bank.Christos has taken full responsibility for the gesture that was motivated by economic necessity, denying any involvement of Alfredo. But the judge obviously didn't believe it. Both are therefore still in prison. The first, because he dared to stretch out his hand to take the wealth of the bosses rather than resign himself to a life of miseria. Moreover, he is an anarchist. The second because... because... because perhaps he helped his comrade. And it's sure that he is an anarchist. That is enough.Outside, solidarity starts to be organised. Money starts to be gathered, initiatives are prepared. But not only. The two prisoners receive explosive greetings from Athens, from the group Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, just after disturbing the crowning of the new Greek prime minister. In Villejuif in France someone pays them homage by shattering the windows of the Socialist Party. One of the beauties of anarchism is that it does not recognise borders. And in Italy?Well, here one limits oneself to communicating the news, reporting the press bulletins of the journalists faithfully and coldly. No comment. The extensors of the daily virtual communiques keep quiet. The hoers of their militant back gardens shut up. All quiet the little strategists of the correct alliances. The movement has become a community, anybody that doesn't share the rules and the language doesn't exist. They have no title. Those who are in a hurry to follow the masses have forgotten individuals? Perhaps it's better that way. Better a sincere silence, if in the face of such a deed one doesn't know how to say anything other than some hypocritical chatter about solidarity. Let's keep that for the misadventures of stalinists & various ruins. Or leave it to a few fascists of third millenium, who in one of their forums paid 'honour' to the two arrested anarchists.It's old stuff, of the last century. Two anarchists arrested following a bank robbery. The first is 46 years old, the second, 72. Whether guilty or innocent, for their being anarchists they don't even have the mitigating circumstances of the infantile malady of extremism. Headstrong as they are, they haven't understood that it is time to ride the waves of the social movement, to make a presidium about who knows what in front of the places of power, to be social workers of the damned of the earth. No, they haven't understood. The dream they have in their hearts is too big to conform to the tick-tock of modern times.No forgiveness, no mercy.Addio Lugano bella.

It has now been confirmed that our comrades, along with all those held in the prison of Amfissa, are struggling to survive under appalling conditions.In fact the Amfissa establishment is not a prison but a concentration camp. Our comrades are two of 50 men held locked all together in one cell 20 hours a day.The place is infested with cockroaches, lice and fleas. Last week there was no water for two days, toilets not working, with indescribable consequences and added health risks for all prisoners.Upon his arrest lawyers made an application for bail for Alfredo due to his age, the minor charges against him, and his health condition, including diabetes. Not only was this was refused by the instructing judge in Trikala, the comrades were sent to Amfissa, one of the worst hellholes in Greece. One can only draw one’s own conclusions.A further application for bail for Alfredo was made by his lawyer on October 11, on medical grounds. The application was backed with numerous health reports translated from Italian and papers showing that he had been released from prison to house arrest due to his health condition. This has been ignored. A report from Trikala hospital where Alfredo was taken following his arrest is being witheld by police. The intentions of the Greek authorities couldn’t be more clear.Enclosed is the translation of a letter sent by Christos to the new Greek minister of justice denouncing the concentration camp of Amfissa, left unscathed by the recent mutinies and mass hungerstrikes in Greek prisons that involved thousands of prisoners.Revolutionary solidarity with Alfredo, Christos and all comrades and rebels prisoners of the State.

Here we are again with the problem of robbery thrown in our faces as we suddenly find ourselves confronted with a problem that has been isolated from reality as a whole—which as continual movement defies the logic of dissection and historicism—and everyone feels obliged to express themselves on the subject.The lens of judgement focuses on a couple of anarchists following a bank robbery, and from that moment on time imposes itself on those who had simply gone out that day for their own reasons, without consulting law books or asking anyone for their approval. And so begins a transformation in symbol, in history, a transformation in thing.And when free activity is obstructed by the counterpart and the law imposes itself, civic consciousness is re-enforced to the detriment of the individual and their dreams and desires, no matter how confused and repressed these might be. What are the man and woman lurking in every zealous citizen really condemning? Perhaps not the robbery as such, but its failure? Who does not rejoice in their heart of hearts when anonymous robbers succeed in sackaging a bank, emptying a security van or lightening a jeweller of some of his booty? Without loss of blood and, why not, with a bit of style? In the last analysis everyone backs a winner. We feel recompensed in some way for the injury suffered throughout the whole of our lives. On the contrary, when such attempts fail, the logic of judgement takes over.And could it not be that the same thing happens in the anarchist movement? All anarchists are in favour of certain things, in theory. So long as everything remains within the anonymous flux of life, we all agree that the bosses are thieves, judges assassins, journalists liars and fabricators of images for spectacular representation. What matters is that everything proceed discreetly without creating any fuss.But when comrades feel they are confronted with the need to openly take sides, obliged to do so by a specific event—one that has failed to boot—the turgid waters of opinionism divide. And who knows whether behind some of the silence, the outright condemnation or the gossip, the same thing does not happen. Couldn’t these guys have been more discreet... of course they could have done what they liked... After all expropriation is part of our History... but they might at least have got away with it, without stepping on other people’s toes, without defiling the noble History of the movement.Anyone who accepts the crystallisation of parts of reality does so because that is the way they themselves live and perceive reality. And a foiled robbery here, a foiled robbery there, things begin to get heavy for those who work for the History of the movement. But where are the heroes of yesteryear? Poor Anarchy!The same thing can happen in the opposite direction, through a mythisisation of armed robbery as thing in itself. And so we end up with the logic of supporters—those for, and those against.On the other hand, anyone who does not believe in history and has their own projectuality as life in movement, does not fear, or rather does not recognise, the concept of failure. They recognise comrades’ individuality in a projectual context. They see their attempts as an affirmation of this individuality. They work with them to prevent it from being impaired, opening up new, different moments for its expression.They continue to act against the enemy, thus reaffirming their own individuality, with one more reason for doing so. Each according to their own choices and methods, not for History, but against the existent.In freedom, for freedom.The robbery itself is a false problem.

Saturday, 2 January 2010

They are old things, from another century. Poverty, which progress seemed to have banished from the West, comes back to make us feel its bite. Bankers aren’t jumping from windows yet, but the poor are filling the streets. Factories and shops close their doors. Millions of people find themselves with no means for facing the future. They were promised that a life passed on their knees, between a job that profited a boss and obedience to the will of the government would at least ensure a quiet survival for them. Now it’s clear to all that this was a lie.

They are old things, from another century. The lines are swelling in front of soup kitchens. The number of thefts in supermarkets is constantly growing. Foreclosure proceedings pile up. And while those on the bottom try not to die of hunger, those on top prepare for the worst, for the feared social explosion. “Zero tolerance” is guaranteed for anyone who breaks the law; new structures of detention are being prepared for natives and immigrants; soldiers and “volunteers” patrol neighborhoods that are under video surveillance. The old and new poor have to know: dying of privation or suicide, these are the only choices permitted to them.

They are old things, from another century. Today, more and more people are reaching out to grab wealth from the places where it exists in abundance. Some even have a dream in their heart, like the two anarchists, Christos and Alfredo, who were arrested in Greece on October 1 for a bank robbery. Christos robbed the bank at gunpoint. They claim that Alfredo aided him, taking the money on delivery. Now the two anarchists, one Greek and one Italian, are behind bars. Prison is the fate promised to anyone who isn’t resigned to dying in misery, the fate promised to the enemies of all exploitation and authority.

They are old things, from another century. A shattered economy, skyrocketing unemployment, the deterioration of living conditions, a war among the poor fomented by the powerful henchmen, racism speeding up from a mere creep to a gallop, a planet threatened by technological development, States alternating the carrot of democracy with the stick of totalitarianism…In this sudden return to the past, there is still something missing: the offended dignity that drives desperation away, transforming it into action; the freedom that stops being the right to obey authority and goes back to being the challenge to every form of power; the desire to live that isn’t satisfied with what exists and mounts an assault to snatch what has never been.

Friday, 1 January 2010

Many comrades have shown their solidarity to Christos and Alfredo in oneway or another, in the form of prisoner support, benefits, etc. Here are someactions that have been reported in anarchist websites over these past months.

INSURRECTIONIST ANARCHISTS SALUTE BONANNO WITH DIRECT ACTIONAlfredo Bonanno, the pioneering figure of insurrectionist theory and practice, was arrested by the Greek state on the grounds of “bank robbery”. A group of insurrectionist anarchists destroyed an ATM in Istanbul in solidarity with Bonanno, covered the location with red paint, drew symbols of anarchy and put up a banner demanding “FREEDOM FOR BONANNO”.The target of the action which emphasized that insurrectionist solidarity can only be showed by direct action, was chosen symbolically to refer to the allegation of “bank robbery” made by the patrons of the system. “What's breaking into a bank compared with founding a bank?”

REBELLION, ACTION, ANARCHY! 29/10/2009below is an entry posted in 325.nostate.net/ November 7th, 2009

The communiqué beneath claims an attack against an election meeting of the previous first minister Karamanlis that took place at the eve of the elections. An artisanal bomb was put in a garbage container next to the building where the meeting took place. The meeting was evicted. The ‘Conspiracy’ talks about the recent attacks as well. On the 4th of October, the socialists of the PASOK win the elections. Together with the green party they form up the government. One of the first measures they took was sending an overwhelming police force to Exarchia, a neighbourhood in Athens where the anarchists and anti-authoritarians are very strong. This police force stayed for several days in order to pacify the situation. The socialists, in the best of their traditions, made the struggle against the anarchists and the spread of the attacks an important issue on their agenda…

THIS IS HOW IT IS… IF THAT’S WHAT YOU THINK…

........Let’s show them that the new guerrilla is not a soap bubble, nor a teenage impulse, nor an explosion of artistic anxiety.The realisation and reanimation of our aggressive desires, our negations, our existence is attacking the status quo.You will always be right in front of us… and we’ll see who’s with his back against the wall.Conspiracy of Cells of Fire – Nihilist Fraction

PS: We give our greetings to the anarchists and comrades Christos Stratigopoulos and Alfredo Bonanno who, despite his age, keeps treasuring his unaltered negation and continues walking on the way he choose to walk.n a recent solidarity action on 30 November in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico, by Anonymous Anarchist Action, 28 police vehicles were torched out of use. The action was dedicated to “the International Week of Agitation and Pressure in Solidarity with the Prisoners Seized by the Chilean State, and in support of comrade Gabriel Pombo Da Silva’s call for a hunger strike as a means of revolutionary struggle for our comrades in prison. Our action is in solidarity with comrade Emmanuel Hernández Hernández (prisoner in Mexico City), Gabriel Pombo Da Silva, Marco Camenisch, Juan Carlos Rico Rodríguez, Sergio María Stefani, Francesco Porcu, Alessandro Settepani, Leonardo Landi, Pablo Carvajal, Matías Castro, Axel Osorio, Diego Petrissans, Amadeu Casellas Ramón, Alfredo María Bonanno, Christos Stratigopoulos, and all the anarchist prisoners of the social war.”

Solidarity means attack! Destroy all prisons!

Royal Bank of Scotland HQ attacked in Brighton (UK)

2 November 2009 : Attack against RBS in solidarity with anarchist prisoners. Here is the claim: “We take responsibility for attacking the Brighton HQ of the Royal Bank of Scotland in the evening of 2nd November 2009. All banks are part of the same system which is destroying everything and has to go. Banks are the most visible manifestation of the exploitation and annihilation of our lives, carried out by state and capital. We haven’t forgotten the role of RBS in the financial crisis and the April G20 where Ian Tomlinson was killed by police, nor do we forgive.

We dedicate this action to Yiannis Dimitrakis, Amadeu Casellas, Thomas Meyer-Falk, Alfredo M. Bonanno and Christos Stratigopulos, anarchist comrades in prison for expropriations who chose to directly attack this system, as well as all other rebels who are in struggle inside and outside the prison walls.

We will not stop.”

Anarchists.

Attack on Berlin police station claimed in solidarity with German and Greek Prisoners (Germany)

13 October 2009 : From the German press: Unknown persons attacked a police station in Lichtenberg and created high damages. Nobody got injured. Clearly the perpretrators acted in solidarity with people who are in prison accused of arsons on cars. State security investigates.

Around 12.30 the group showed up in front of the police station and smashed several windows with stones, afterwards they lighted smokebombs, their smoke reached the inner part of the building through the damaged windows. Also they left some calthrops on the streets which damaged the police cars who wanted to search for the authors, who instead could flee away. The police first arrested three persons in the area but had to release them quite fast. Civil cops found a bag in the near of the action containing flyers who had a connection to the ongoing arsons on cars.

The following claim was published recently on the internet:

„At first we want to condemn of again innocent passer-byers who just finish in the search-framework – an arrest we read in the press about. Now follow informations about the attack on the police station in the Rathaustr. in Berlin Lichtenerg in the night from the 13 to the 14 of October: solidarity knows no borders…

You keep our comrades Masouras, Hadjimichelakis and Yospus prisoners in Athens. You took Christoph T. And Alexandra R. in general preventive kidnapping, you want to make an example with the prisoners of the first of May, you organised a farce process against alleged members of the MG, therefore we visited you. In solidarity with all the ones who are on our side of the barricade and take action against your social terror-control ansd your anti-insurrection combating. A special greeting goes to Alfredo Bonanno and Christos Stratigopoulos, kept in pre-trial detention in Greece.

source: trentinocorrierealpiA letter reached the newsroom of the daily newspaper the 'Trentino' concerning the explosion of two cash dispensers in Rovereto on the night between Christmas and Boxing Day. In the communique there was a demand for the liberation of two of the main theoreticians of insurrectionalist anarchism.

TRENTO. A claim for the two explosions in as many cash dispensers in Rovereto that took place during the night between Christmas and Santo Stefano, reached the newsroom of the local daily paper the 'Trentino', and seems to open an anarchist trail.

In the missive, written with a ruler to compose each letter, there is the request to free two anarchists. They are Alfredo Maria Bonanno, 72 years, considered one of the main theoreticians of insurrectionalist anarchism, arrested in Greece for concourse in robbery last October 2, and the Greek Christos Stratigopoulos, active in the middle of the nineties also in Italy.

The carabinieri of Rovereto, who are investigating the case, are examining the letter, which bears a Verona postmark dated Monday December 28. Technical analyses will be carried out to look for fingerprints.

No outcome on the other hand from the declaration of a witness who saw two young people escaping, their faces covered by balaclavas, other than confirmation of the dynamic of the deeds: two rudimentary devices made from fireworks and the bank CCTV cameras obscured in order to avoid being taken.(29 December 2009)Monday, 04/01/2010 – informa-azione